Until Then
by LightWoman
Summary: "Maybe he realises what an idiot he's been." At this, she laughs. "I doubt it." Now complete.
1. Chapter 1

No idea where this came from. It just started writing itself, really. Hmm. Anyway.

**Disclaimer: Same as always, own nothing.**

Until Then

"He's been better lately."

She nods, agreeing with the comment but adding nothing of her own.

"Things could change though."

She nods again. Things were always changing. Their lives were a constant merry-go-round of drama, suspense, danger, anger... and happiness. She shouldn't forget the good moments, as easy as it would be sometimes to let them get buried beneath the rubble from the rest of their relationship.

"Maybe he's realised what an idiot he's been."

At this, she laughs. "I doubt it."

"It could happen."

She exhales slowly. "Some people don't change."

"It hasn't stopped you trying though, right?"

She turns to him with a frown. "I thought we agreed we weren't going to have discussions like this anymore."

"You started it."

"I did not!"

"You were thinking about him."

She rolls her eyes and sits up, reaching for her nearest item of clothing. "And you're not supposed to be reading me."

"Hey, that's the rule you made with him, not with me."

"We agreed to certain things though, when we started... this."

"This," he echoes. "And what is _this_, Gillian?"

She stands up, pulling on the rest of her clothes without looking at him. "That's something else we agreed." She slips her arms into her cardigan and turns to look at him at last. "That we weren't going to over-analyse this."

"I don't think it's possible to over-analyse something you haven't even remotely begun to analyse."

She runs her fingers through her hair, slipping on her shoes. "We're both getting something we want from this. And we agreed, we weren't going to make a big deal out of it. And we'd carry on until one of us decided we didn't want it anymore."

"Until Lightman realises he wants you, you mean," he says calmly, and she almost wants to smack him for the lack of aggravation in his voice, although the impulse feels completely irrational.

"Or Torres realises she wants you?" she fires back, and sees his lips thin ever so slightly. She smirks in satisfaction. _Two can play at this game_.

"I'll see you at work," she tells him, and then the door is closing behind her, and the sound of her disappearing down the stairs is followed by the click of the front door, and then silence.


	2. Chapter 2

I wasn't really planning to write a second chapter of this... but then I never really planned to write the first either LOL.

**Disclaimer: Still not mine.**

Chapter Two

They're arguing about something else – why he lied to her about the methods he was employing in their latest case, unsurprisingly – when he suddenly switches course.

"Were you ever going to tell me?"

She falters. "What?"

"Were you ever going to tell me?" he repeats slowly, and her eyes are boring into his as she tries to figure out what the hell he means. Not _that_, surely.

"We're talking about you, Cal. About why _you _didn't tell _me _what _you_ were up to today." She accentuates every _you _with a forceful poke to his chest. "Don't try and make this about me."

"So, never, then?" He sits back on his desk, swinging his legs like a bored child, and she takes a deep breath to calm herself.

"Am I supposed to know what you're referring to?"

"Yeah."

She rolls her eyes. "Direct and to the point."

He stands up, walks closer to her, and she takes a step back.

"Did you think I wouldn't know?" he asks darkly, and for the first time she wonders what he thinks of it all. She isn't ever sure what _she _thinks of it all, and she's the one being fucked senseless every other night by a man she barely even talks to outside of work matters.

She tilts her chin up defiantly, meets his eyes, challenges him to say something, _anything_, really, to give her a clue as to what her next move should be.

He looks at her, then turns and sits back behind his desk. "Case is finished. Sort the paperwork, will you?"

She feels the anger boiling inside her, but she's not going to let it out. Not on him. He doesn't deserve that kind of passion from her, not until he's ready to display it himself.

Her heels click loudly on the floor as she walks into the lab. He's alone, luckily.

"Get your coat," she mutters, and he doesn't have to ask why.

"What's he done now?" he questions, as they're walking out the building, but she ignores him. She told him they're not going to talk about _him_; perhaps silence will get that message across.

#

He watches them leave together, and balls his hand into a fist at his side. Then he's opening his cabinet and pulling out a bottle of scotch, and he doesn't even bother getting a glass. If she were here, if they were drinking together, he would. But she's not, and they're not, and if you're alone there's a lot of things there doesn't seem much point in doing.

He swallows another mouthful, then another. He wonders how long they'll continue to play this game, how long it will be before one of them breaks, who it is who will be the first one to crack. Until then, she has her way of dealing with things. And he has his.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

There's a woman flirting with him, and she shouldn't hate it so much, but she does. She's tossing her hair, laughing and smiling, and he's lapping it up and she fucking _hates _it. She shouldn't care, it's not like they're really _together _or anything, but she does.

She slams her drink down on the bar with a little more force than she'd intended and walks towards them with a purposeful step. Placing a hand on his arm she gives him a sultry smile before turning to shoot an icy glare at the woman in red.

"Honey," she purrs into his ear, "let's go home."

He considers it for a moment because, just maybe, the woman in red could be something special. But she has this power over him that he still can't fathom, and since this whole mess started he's found himself less and less able to deny her what she wants. He knows there's only one reason why she's doing it; that doesn't matter. What _does _matter is that it's him she's chosen to use for this purpose. Using it may be, but as he shoots an apologetic glance at the woman in red and places an arm around his boss's waist, he thinks that maybe being used isn't so bad after all.

Part of her regrets it the moment they're walking out the door. She's not even sure she recognises the woman she's become lately, can't pinpoint when the person she used to be started to bleed into the woman she's acting like now. Waltzing from the room with a young man on her arm, taking him away from a girl he might well have liked, and not even really giving a _damn_ – when did she become _that _woman?

She does it because he makes more eye contact with her now than he used to. She does it because a certain other man would most likely have _not _risen from his seat and escorted her home, but rather chosen to stay with his latest companion. She does it because she _can_.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

One day, she'll look back on all this and laugh. She'll think of the childish games they played, think of the stupid things he did, think of the stupid things _she _did, and wonder how and why their lives came to be so tangled together.

She's tried to pull away, of course. She's tried to play him at his own game. She's tried a million different things and in the end, she's learnt only one thing: when you love someone enough to never leave them, and hate them enough to not know how to be around them sometimes, then you're well and truly screwed.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

She wonders how much it will take for him to break.

At first, she thought he'd be able to do this as well as she does; go through the motions, straighten out their clothes, go back to their lives as though nothing has happened. But she's sensed a change in him, and if she were a better person she'd talk to him about it. She'd be the supportive boss, she'd be the gifted psychologist, she'd be his _friend_. She'd say _hey, if you don't want to do this anymore, I understand, _or _if you just want to talk, nothing else, we can do that, that's fine_.

She doesn't. Maybe she's not the better person everyone seems to think she is.

She pulls him closer to her, feels how much he wants her and smiles in satisfaction. _At least somebody does_.

It's not perfect, but it's better than nothing.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

He wonders how long she'll keep doing this. He wonders if she'll start to enjoy it, if the bond between them will grow, if sex will lead to love instead of the other way around.

He wonders when the moment was when she first decided to walk away; what it was about _that _precise second that made screwing their employee the best course of action in her mind.

He wonders if saying something sooner would have made a difference, but it all seems irrelevant now.

He'll go and find a bar, and a perky blonde, and he'll use drink and sex to drown out the white noise in just the same way she does.

He'll close his eyes when his nameless companion is in his arms, and he'll let himself pretend, for as long as he can, that she's someone else.

He wonders if, wherever she is, she's doing the same thing.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

She's wearing the red dress that he loves, but he wonders now if it isn't for his benefit at all. Maybe she doesn't want to tempt or antagonise him, maybe this isn't about punishing him. Maybe this is all about impressing _him_. Maybe he read it all wrong. Maybe it's nothing to do with him at all. Maybe she actually _enjoys _it.

She sees the way he looks at her in this dress. She sees the way they _both _look at her when she's wearing this dress. One eyes her hungrily, like he wants to rip it off her there and then. And later, he will.

The other looks at her like he's desperate to peel back the layers, not just of her clothes but of her, and truly see what lies beneath. But he doesn't know how.

She doesn't, either.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

"Do you want to talk about it?"

She doesn't answer, and hears him sigh in response to her silence. To give him credit he pushes it no further, but there's anger mixed with regret and a thousand other things jostling in her mind, and she doesn't have the energy to address each and every one.

She doesn't meet his eyes as she sits up and begins to dress. It hasn't escaped her notice that she's always the first to move, the first to leave. It hasn't escaped his either.

He knows it won't last, of course. Part of him even thinks he should end it before she does; before it goes too far, before they have to give a name to this habit they've developed, before it destroys them both.

But he doesn't. And, although he knows he probably should, he also knows he probably never will.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Sometimes he thinks he should keep a diary. A record of it all, somehow, with a coloured pen to show days when the two of them argued, and a different colour for the nights when she came knocking at his door. He wonders if, were he to present it to her in that way, the colours intermingling on the stark white paper, she might open her eyes a little wider. Other times he thinks her eyes are open wide; she just doesn't like what she sees.

If he did keep a diary like that, though, she's probably not the one he should be showing it to.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

It stops on a windy Tuesday in November. He could tell you they'd just had sex for the thirty eighth time; she couldn't.

It stops, and she wishes she didn't have to put it into words, but she does. At least, she tries. She tells him it's over, that they have to end it. He tries to be respectful but the word _why _is burning in the back of his throat, and he needs some kind of explanation to allow him to swallow it fully. He knows theirs was never an epic romance; knows she doesn't love him; knows she never will. But there are some things he _doesn't _know that he wants to. Like _why now_.

It stops, but she can't properly explain to him why.

It's not because she thinks of another man every time they have sex, it's not because she worries about the lack of professionalism she's displaying by doing this, it's not because she's not enjoying the carnal pleasure of it all, because she is.

And it's not because _he _asked her to stop it. She's not even sure she knows what she'd have said if he had.

It stops because she's _tired._ She's tired of running from something that she can't even give a name to, she's tired of avoiding eye contact with herself in the mirror, she's tired of pretending she feels things she doesn't, and doesn't feel things she does. She's tired of it all.

It stops, because if she doesn't stop it now, she never will.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

He knows something is different. Of course, their body language hardly betrayed them before; you'd almost have thought they were strangers, not lovers. But he sees. He knows. And something is different.

He goes back and forth in his head about whether or not he should ask her about it. He stands, he sits, he reaches for the phone, he replaces it, he pours himself a drink – he doesn't put _that _down.

When she walks into his office at the end of the day, he's almost surprised to see her. They exchange brief words about the end of the case. She tells him she's heading home. "Alone?" slips out before he can stop it, and her face is a storm of emotions for half a second, then so blank it almost scares him.

"Yes."

He doesn't know how to respond. After half a minute of silence, she turns on her heel and walks out.

_I should have said something. _He bangs his fist on the table, muttering curse words to the silent room. _I should have said something. _But how do you speak when you don't know what to say? How can you take a lifetime of regret and hope and things you don't even really understand, and distil them all into words and sentences and coherent speech? How can you communicate with someone when you stopped speaking the same language a long, long time ago?

_He didn't say anything. _She's shaking when she presses the button for the elevator, she's breathing heavily when she climbs into her car, and when she pulls out onto the highway she notices her eyes are filling with tears. It's an angry hand that wipes them away. _He didn't say anything. _She shouldn't care.

But she does. She always has.


	12. Chapter 12

Thank you to everyone who has stuck with this story; it started out as a one-shot and I really never expected to continue it and write twelve parts, but there you go. I hope this final part meets your approval.

Chapter Twelve

She tosses the file on his desk with a cursory "here", then turns to leave. He hasn't given her much reason lately to stay.

"It's over, then?"

She stops at his words, her hands twitching at her sides. Eventually she turns, and meets his eyes with a cool gaze.

"And?"

"And what?"

She sighs. "Never mind, Cal. Goodnight."

"So who's next, then? That tall bloke from accounting? Roy?"

"Ray," she corrects, the edge to her voice much harsher than usual.

"Ray," he echoes, and her hands find her hips as she glares at him.

"It's none of your business."

"Isn't it?"

Her glare intensifies, and her heart is hammering in her chest and she prays to God he hasn't noticed the quickening of her breath. Or, if he has, has just attributed it to irritation.

"If I want to tell you something, I will. If I don't, I don't. That's how it goes, remember?"

"How could I forget?"

She sighs, her hands falling from her hips to by her side, then reaching forward to touch the back of the chair lightly. "If you really wanted an answer to that question, it's yes. It's over."

"I see."

"Do you?"

Her question takes him by surprise, and when his eyes meet hers they seem wider than usual, more alert. There's sadness on her face, and anger and confusion and fear and a hundred other things that he can't read all at once, and the intensity of her expression and voice jolts him.

"I don't know," he says slowly. "Do I?"

She sighs again, the expression _going round in circles _echoing in her brain, and wonders if they'll ever find a way out of this mess.

"It's over," he repeats, his eyes firmly fixed on hers, and she doesn't back down or look away. Instead she takes a seat opposite him, crosses her legs, folds her hands in her lap and returns his scrutinising gaze.

"Yes. So what are you going to do about it?" Her eyes are blazing, and he almost wants to smile, because he hasn't seen that kind of passion from her in a _long _time.

"What do you want me to do about it?"

"That's a deflection," she informs him like he didn't already know, but he doesn't reply. "I'm not leaving until I get an answer, Cal," she tells him, her words surprising her as she hears them hit the air.

"And if I don't say anything?"

"Then we'll be here for a long time."

"Gillian," he says softly. "We've already been here a long time."

She swallows. "Yes, we have."

"So..."

"So are you going to answer me?"

"Remind me of the question." He's just playing with her and she knows it, and while part of her wants to hit him for it, another part of her wants to smile.

"What are you going to do about it?" she indulges him, and the silence between them lasts so long she's half convinced he'll forget the question again.

"I don't know," he says eventually, which makes her smile, and he raises his eyebrows to question her response, and suddenly she's laughing. His confusion is evident on his face, and clearly he thinks she's laughing at him. What she'd like to say, if she knew how to form the words through her laughter, is that _she_ doesn't know either, so it's comfort she's drawing from his words now, and relief that she's not the only one who doesn't know where they are or what they're doing.

More than that, though, what he's just shown her is something he hasn't shown her in a long time. Honesty.

"What's so funny?" he asks, but she just shakes her head.

"You."

"Me," he echoes softly.

"And me."

"You... and me... so... _us_," he clarifies, and she shivers at the new meaning that word seems to have taken on.

"I guess so."

The silences stretches between them again, her laughter having subsided, and she feels as though she's locked in a game of stare like a child: _first to blink is the loser._

"So I don't know... anything, really," he says at last. "And you don't, either."

"So it would seem."

"And you're not leaving this room until you get some sort of answer?"

She uncrosses her legs, crosses them the other way, tilts her head to the side as she surveys him. "Correct."

"Could be here a while," he comments.

"As you said," she reminds him, and his gaze softens.

"So until I figure out something clever to say, we're just going to sit here?"

She smiles slightly. "It doesn't have to be clever."

"So what does it have to be?"

"True."

"You could wait a lifetime for that."

Her lips thin a little, which doesn't escape his notice. "I've already waited too long, Cal. Too long," she says, and the weight of her words strikes him.

He nods, thinks, deliberates, then opens his mouth. "Ask me again."

She rolls her eyes, but obliges. "What are you going to do about it?"

"Whatever you want me to," he says, and it's an answer and it's not an answer at the same time, and they've gone from going in circles to a loopy, zig zag line that could take them somewhere, anywhere, far away from where they are now.

She wants to tell him that, but she doesn't. She wants to tell him to give a _proper _answer. She also wants to thank him for his answer, because she loves it just as much as she hates it.

"And if I don't know what I want you to do about it?"

A smile ghosts across his lips. "We'll stay in this room until you figure it out."

"Could be a while."

He nods. "I've got time."

_You haven't_, she thinks, but doesn't say anything.

_I haven't_, he thinks, but doesn't amend his words.

The silence settles again, but it's different now. There isn't such a sharp edge to it, and it feels more like a river of silence flowing between them, rather than an impenetrable wall. She doesn't seem so far away, somehow, whereas moments before, even on the other side of the desk, it felt like a million miles were between them. It's different, and although he can't explain it, he also feels he doesn't have to. Her quiet gaze says enough.

"So you're not going anywhere?" He has to say the words out loud, just to make sure.

"No."

His eyes never leave hers. "That's all I need to know."

As they lapse back into silence, she wonders how long they'll sit here. She wonders when the words will come, when their mistakes will become irrelevant, when the barest truth that lies between them will be enough.

What she does know, now, is that he isn't going anywhere either. All they have to do is figure out what that means, for both of them.


End file.
